Breakdown of fiber optic network: Internet 'flickering' 10 days more

December 28, the second day, the Vietnamese telecommunications system interrupted because of a cable breakdown. Access to websites with servers in the US is still almost impossible. Yahoo! Messenger completely disconnected makes millions of subscribers continue to "lose contact". Many businesses suffer.

Not overcome

As of the afternoon of December 28, the two largest fiber-optic leasing companies in Vietnam, the International Telecommunication Company (VTI) and the Military Telecom Corporation (Viettel), affirmed that the incident has not been completely overcome. .

The fiber optic breakdown in Taiwan made the connection from Vietnam to SMW-3 to Hong Kong to other areas across Taiwan.

For VTI, VDC's main customer is also the largest Internet service provider, VDC has been seriously affected. Mr. Nguyen Huu Khanh, director of VTI, said the incident made about 30% of VDC's international Internet traffic flow lost.

As for Viettel, according to Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, deputy general director, in addition to providing transmission fiber optic cable for Viettel's international telephone and Internet services, this unit also provides fiber optic cable for FPT's Internet service. and cable breakdowns have resulted in a loss of up to 80% (for Internet) and up to 90% (for international phones).

An Internet phone service provider said the Internet phone traffic (Internet phone) of the company decreased by about 10% (only about 108,000 successful calls / day). Mr. Ton Minh Thong - Deputy General Director of Saigon Post and Telecommunication Services Joint Stock Company (SPT) - said this incident had a direct impact on thousands of ADSL subscribers and dozens of customers leasing their own channel. SPT.

Mr. Tran Hoa Binh - Head of Customer Service Center for Computing and Data Transmission Area 3 (VDC3) - said about 80,000 customers of VDC3 in the Central region were affected by this incident. 'While waiting for the international transmission line to be restored, we had to use the data transfer method through some other channels; however, access is also slow and difficult, 'said Mr. Binh.

Malfunction from mail to phone

The owner of an Internet shop in Hong Ha Street (Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City) explained to her only customer in the morning of December 28, the international Internet cable breakdown, so she could not log into the Yahoo network. ! Messenger, as well as being unable to access websites overseas (photo taken on December 28). Photo: NCT .

Net shop: place of rest, normal place

Continuously on December 27 and 28, many Internet service providers in the Mekong Delta region such as Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Can Tho City . fell into a slump because many websites were not accessible. The owner of Bao Tran Internet base on Le Hong Phong street, Soc Trang town, said the average income of the facility is about 250,000-300,000 VND / day but in the last two days only reached a few tens of thousands of dong / day, mainly print documents because the network collapses. At the net room of the General Library of Soc Trang province in the afternoon of December 28, dozens of computers are also located . blanket bosses.

Similarly hundreds of public Internet services in Da Nang were completely paralyzed. Most customers of these service establishments often chat with Yahoo! Messenger, but not available, these facilities are all absent.

Meanwhile, in Ho Chi Minh City, most Internet stores are still operating normally.Access speed is slightly faster than the previous day but still slow compared to normal.

Some international airlines have flights to Vietnam, saying that at the beginning they had some problems with flight information and ticket sales. However, the problem was quickly fixed, transactions and The flight is still going on normally. Some banks said that domestic and foreign online transactions are also influential, but customers have been consulted to change and perform manual transactions, so it has not much effect. Transactions between banks and branches all use their own intranet, so the impact from this incident is not significant.

According to Mr. Phan Thanh Son, technical director of Cisco VN Company, a company must regularly work with a parent company abroad, many of the company's operations must be delayed. Mail does not check or speed is very slow, reports have to be done via the web has a similar situation, online meetings with countries with VoIP system is completely impossible in the last two days wearing Although the company is equipped with a direct line of 512kps.

Mabuchi Motor (Japan) based in Hoa Khanh Industrial Park (Lien Chieu, Da Nang) was unable to correspond with its parent company in Japan. ' The exchange has been by email or chat. But almost three days ago all exchanges have to be used by phone. The cost of business increased, 'said a representative of Mabuchi Motor Da Nang.

A company in Can Tho said that many remote candidates registered by mail are accepted by the company, but the company is unable to grasp the information at the moment, making it difficult.

Mr. Nguyen Tuan Anh - Deputy General Director of Ut Xi Seafood Processing Joint Stock Company (Soc Trang) - said that due to the collapse of the network, the company has encountered many obstacles in the business two days because it wants to send mail to customers. but can't send. Therefore, it is necessary to transfer to the transaction form by calling long-distance to overseas not only to spend more money than before but sometimes it is still impossible to call because the other party is constantly busy.

Temporary solution

VTI and Viettel all tried to overcome the problem by transferring the capacity through the broken fiber cable to other routes. The capacity reduction to other routes is not difficult, but it has created a tightness so the transmission line does not guarantee the desired speed, especially at peak time.

Compared to the Internet, as of last afternoon, international telephone service has been maximized due to low international phone traffic.

Mr. Ha Than - general director of Lac Viet Company, a software-making business - said: ' We have to be very patient to transfer data to foreign partners via the Internet '. Many large packets of data must be split into many small packets that can be sent, sometimes even not sent.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Hien - Director of Ho Chi Minh City Software Technology Center (SSP) - said that in addition to direct Internet lines, this software area also uses telecom system via VSAT satellite. ' Therefore, we are not concerned about the effects of Internet incidents caused by earthquakes in Taiwan, ' said Mr. Hien.

10 days or three weeks?

According to experts, due to the problem on the whole system, the remedy depends not only on VTI and Viettel but also on many international partners, so it takes at least 10 days to fully recover. .

According to information from TeleGeography, this is the biggest telecom incident ever. According to Tyco Telecommunications, the location of fiber optic cables is about 30 meters below the seabed, so it takes several days for the repair ships to reach the locations to be repaired and usually take several weeks or even longer. new ability to recover completely.

Yesterday afternoon, Pham Hong Hai, head of the Ministry of Posts and Telematics Telecommunications Department, said the ministry is urging related businesses to urgently fix the problem. The ministry also issued a notice around the incident. The Ministry requests the relevant units in case it is necessary to allow foreign ships to enter Vietnamese waters to repair sea cables, the ministry will coordinate with the concerned ministries and branches to resolve in the shortest time.

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Asia: 'wrestling' with work

With contingency plans and routing to other directions, telecommunication networks in Asian countries are gradually recovering. Taiwan's largest telecom carrier Chunghwa Telecom is currently the fastest deployment unit for fiber optic repair. They raised 60% of the traffic for calls instead of just 40% of the previous day. Calls to Japan have increased 70% compared to 11% of the previous day, calling China to 55% compared to 10%. The company said it could lose more than $ 4.6 million after the cable break. Chunghwa Telecom said it had sent four ships originating from Japan, Singapore and the Philippines to repair the cable breakdown, but on February 1, 2007, it could start work and it took at least two weeks to complete. China Telecom has determined that six cable lines have been broken in the area 15km south of Taiwan.

Cable diagram broken due to earthquake - Photo: Chunghwa Telecom

OFTA, the Hong Kong telecom regulator, issued a statement stating that millions of their office workers struggled with their jobs because there was no Internet and international phone. OFTA thinks this country must live "struggling" for at least five more days. OFTA said it has sent five repair ships to the sea to be able to recover 90% of the system's capacity in the coming days. The agency said that the South China region's international landline and mobile phone system has recovered but it will take another week to reach 100%.

In South Korea, KT Telecom said it has restored the operation of most phone networks across the country, but the independent information network with 92 lines of the bank and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country is still inactive. . In Thailand, CAT Telecom, which manages its international gateway, said its August 4 optical fiber network was affected by a 70% reduction in speed and that it has now recovered 50% of its Internet connection. but to return to normal it takes another 7-10 days.

A quick survey by Sina China in China found that 97% of internet users in the country had trouble connecting to external websites and 57% said their lives and jobs were affected by This incident.

Meanwhile many companies across Asia such as Kuwait Finance House - the major Muslim bank in West Asia, or Nippon Yusen KK - Japan's largest ocean carrier are constantly complaining because of being seriously affected by the try this. Their online transactions online are almost impossible. For Nippon Yusen, instead of using email as usual to quote shipping prices, they now have to use telephones and faxes, which is also very difficult. Reply to Bloomberg News, Apheron Cheng - DHL's IT director - says all their connections are not working and everything is returning manually.

KV (According to Reuters, AP, AFP, Bloomberg )